The bike is built around a Honda CB250, but this one punches above it’s weight in stance and attitude. It started out as a modest build through Ab who came to them via Facebook. “He wanted a simple tune-up and some small mods. We met in Utrecht and talked about the bike and his vision with it.”

Ab had bought the bike and had originally planned to do all the work himself, but ‘life got in the way’ – as it does – so he went to Bert & Jene to finish the work. The initial instructions were very simple. It had to be a cafe, black with chrome, and fast. Ab’s idea was to get the guys to change a few things and then add new parts later, but after spending some time chewing it over he changed his mind; “fuck it, go all out”. A proper build was on.

The first thing we noticed about the bike were the chunky upside down forks. Spindly forks are not the most attractive feature of small capacity custom builds, and changing them out for something more meaty makes a big difference. In this case the donor tubes came from a Aprilia RS125. “The tripleclamp had to be modded and new needle bearings were placed. The top-clamp (which had “Aprilia” engraved) was welded flat and a bracket was welded on for the speedo.”

The front hub had to be modified to make the 320mm disk work with the speedo, and a bracket was fabbed-up to hold the shortie front fender. The lamp-ears are also designed and build in-house, as there are no ears such big diameter whilst looking small. The tank remains the stock item, as early CB tanks were always pretty, and the seat is in the usual custom flat bench style. New tyres were joined by new chain & sprockets, grips and a simplified loom and switchgear.

The frame and swingarm have been coated and everything is mounted back with stainless steel hardware.